


Twats and Ridiculous Doctors in Space (T.A.R.D.I.S.)

by butterbum



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Doctor Who Fusion, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, But only the who lock part, Community: wholockians, Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Doctor Who AU, John is the Doctor, Johnlock - Freeform, Love, M/M, Magic, Mycroft is actually magic, Sex in a TARDIS, Sherlock is his companion, Sherlock's Mind Palace, Superwholock, Weddings, Wholock, dedications to some of my fave fic authors, saving people and stuff, whoops, yay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-29
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2018-05-17 01:22:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5848495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterbum/pseuds/butterbum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where Sherlock handles time and space pretty well, Lestrade gets to arrest Timothy Gale, and John is the Doctor.</p><p>(partly inspired by tomlinsunshine's It's Been 5 Til Midnight For The Past Hour bc/  it's just a great mash and one of my first and fave fics I ever read)</p><p>(also there is a reference to the extraordinary Paradox Series by wordstrings if you squint)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twats and Ridiculous Doctors in Space (T.A.R.D.I.S.)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tomlinsunshine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomlinsunshine/gifts).



Sherlock knows where Timothy Gale hid the detonator, and he knows where Timothy Gale is, and why he’s doing it. Sherlock knows that Timothy is – or was, shopping at Speedy’s in London. Sherlock could probably catch him and hand him in to the Yard, except Sherlock doesn’t quite know if he himself is in Speeedy's.

Or London.

“Hello,” says a blonde man standing next to him. He’s firm, but his eyes soft, and seems rather unsurprised by the turn of events. “My name is the Doctor.”

“Sherlock Holmes,” says Sherlock, and faints.

When he comes to, he is propped up against one of the arches a few feet away from where he was before. The Doctor is flicking a small device in his hand on and off. He has very small hands; Sherlock finds he likes them.

"What is that?" Sherlock asks and scrambles to his feet. He thanks whatever powers that his Belstaff was transported here- wherever here is - with him. He can keep a shred of his elegance.

"Ah," says the Doctor and looks very pleased that Sherlock is up. "Hullo. It's a sonic screwdriver. Don't have many of these floating around the Milky Way but this one seems to work well enough."

"Do you have experience in sonic screwdrivers?"

"This is my sixth," says the Doctor, sounding wistful. "My third was such a lovely one, too."

"Where is this?" Sherlock turns. "I would assume somewhere earthly, but because you carry sonic screwdrivers and the aesthetics of this capsule are beyond anything humanly capable, I believe it is not. Another planet? Scientifically impossible as of yesterday, but perhaps that has changed."

"This," says the Doctor, "is the TARDIS. My time traveling space machine. Like her?"

"She's a marvel," says Sherlock and goes to inspect the dashboard of buttons and levers. "I have to arrest Timothy Gale eventually, but I believe I could stay a bit longer."

The Doctor grins like a child at Christmas. He stands, stretches, and walks over. He's short; shorter than Sherlock, short for the average man, even (is he a man?). His eyes glow ridiculously blue, really, actually glow in an unnatural way, like there are circuit board lights behind them.

"I'm a Time Lord," says the Doctor. No, not human, no, humans don't read minds. Nor has Sherlock ever heard of a occupation such as 'Time Lord'. "The sixteenth. The Tardis usually chooses females, but you're a male. Aren't you?"

"I'm quite sure," says Sherlock.

"Good. You're far prettier than them, anyway."

Sherlock struggles between flushing red or viciously menacing the sixteenth Time Lord. He settles of staring impassively down at him. Time passes - for a moment, Sherlock forgets observing and drowns in the Doctor's eyes, watching them sparkle like water in the tropics. 

"Where do you want to go?"

Sherlocks snaps back to reality. He feels dazed. "What?" he says, and wished he hadn't. He sounds like an incompetent toddler. Fool, he thinks to himself, frowning.

"Where do you want to go?" the Doctor repeats. "I was en route to the reign of Charlemagne, but we could whip the Tardis around to 1800 England, or 210 BC China and meet the emperor of the Qin dynasty. Do you know Chinese? Well, it wouldn't matter, the Tardis would translate, but wouldn't it be grand? Or we could go a couple thousand years in the future, see the space stations. I once went to see the sun implode, it was fantastic. So. Where do you want to go?"

Sherlock's mind reels. Microwaves, he thinks vaguely.

"Does the Milky Way collapse into itself?" he finally asks once he can grasp his thoughts.

"Yes, but the Hangleych Galaxy and Tchuss Galaxy are around by then. Little baby solar systems and such nice little civilizations growing. Well, the Xanaxal turn out to be bad eggs, but. Anyway."

"And here they were thinking the Earth's path around the Sun was important," Sherlock says, dazed; he looks over the Doctor's shoulder and tries to memorize the pattern of the blinking lights while his mind palace staggers under the weight of this information. The Doctor makes an offended sound that makes him turn back. 

The Doctor is frowning mildly, like he's seen a spot of mold on his toast, and he wrinkles his nose. "It _is_ important. Determines how many of the human race are burnt up in the Great Disc Flage of 6344. Turns out you lot only lose a quarter of the population  after some misguided Oroppe ship knocked you clean out of orbit. Nasty business, I was there. " Sherlock is stunned quiet, and then laughs, hard. How ridiculous, he thinks, to think anything of importance in the face of multiple galaxies and futures. When he opens his eyes, the Doctor is close and staring straight into him.

"Everyone is important," the Doctor says. It sounds so serious that Sherlock doesn't dare contradict or even politely ask him to please stop reading his mind, it's unsettling, thanks. "I've never met a single person that hasn't been important."

The pause is heavy.

"Yes," Sherlock finally murmurs. "I believe you."

+

It only takes twenty three minutes to travel through time (a time-space delay through proposed object's vortexal particle movement? Sherlock wonders.) It's odd and he wants to visit 1920 Chicago and solve Al Capone, but the Doctor says he can't change time (unless its necessary for the human race or if time is being tampered with in some way, which makes no sense.)

"Why do you care so much about the human race, anyway?" Sherlock asks once they've arrived at 24th century Earth. It's bright but quiet and unnervingly clean. There are huge walls though, and Sherlock attributes it to the fact that the rest of the Earth is probably under fiery desolation and pollution. Where he and the Doctor are is probably one of the few human sanctuaries left on this planet.

The Doctor seems to take a minute to gather his thoughts as they walk along the empty white streets. He blinks as they reach something that resembles a park, opens his mouth, shuts it again.

"You feel empathy," he finally says, quietly. "Lots of races skip over it. You can talk a human out of mowing down his people with a machine gun if you say the right things, use his emotions. You can convert him." The Doctor pauses. Deep, quiet breath. "You can't do that with a Dalek or a Cyborg. It's touch and go with them, surrender or conquer or escape. Humans...you've got full emotional range, you've got the makings of a superior race. I just tap it along."

Sherlock stays quiet and let's his thoughts simmer as they walk through the park, white plastic trees and white swings completely still. No children play in the sandbox of bleached sand; its surface is wiped smooth and flat, like a sheen of undisturbed water.  
Instead of responding, he says, "So, you're a doctor."

"Yes."

"But not a medical doctor; you've always had a caring complex, always wanted to help and save. It could be because of the traumatic incident of loss in your past, but from the way you aren't manually employing yourself to justice and revenge, it's more likely to be a natural instinct. You've got strong gut and steady hands but you've shown more genuine interest in emotions and history of Earth than anything having to do with physical health. When I lost consciousness, I should have been left lying on my back with my legs elevated to stimulate blood flow to the brain, but you propped me up, so not much medical knowledge."

The Doctor nods, looking impressed. "Ta for that," he says. "It was a brilliant biography."

"Was I right?" Sherlock asks casually as they stopped on the edge of a bridge to admire the pearly white koi in the bath below.

"On all accounts," the Doctor agrees. "Quite brilliant."

"Thank you," Sherlock says quietly.

They watch the koi for several more minutes, no more but breathing exchanged between them. The koi dip to the bottom of the pool, papery fins fluttering behind them. Their eyes are a deep, shiny black that glow like eclipses.

Then there is an explosion, and they're off.

+

"You do this, then," Sherlock asks as they barricade the door behind them. "All the time. This is your life."

"Um, yes," the Doctor agrees and opens the nearest window. "I realized very early on that I had the power to help. And then I realized that infiltrating human clinics and solving their antibiotics equations wasn't my calling," he slides a foot out of the window, and turns back to Sherlock, grinning a manic grin.

"But adventure was."

The Doctor drops out of sight and Sherlock, probably not very worried but cautious all the same, glances out of the window. Below, the Doctor is balanced on a single, inch-wide ledge circling the building. Satisfied, Sherlock slides his own leg over the will just as he hears the mœdret soldiers reach the door. The barricade seems to be working, though.

"Adventure, then," Sherlock calls, and slips down to the the ledge, balancing precariously. "And saving people and history and races of creatures. Saving whole galaxies. You get off on it, you can't get enough. Some people think it's strange , or even some playing-God complex. Untrue, though; you're just an adrenaline junkie. An affinity for danger."

"Are you really doing this now?" the Doctor asks incredulously of Sherlock, and shoots a look of disbelief. "Now, while we're being chased?"

As if on cue, Sherlock hears the mœdret soldiers burst through the barricade from above him. Violent shouting in a strongly accented version of English ensues. "I suppose it can wait," he amends as he leapt down to the ledge next to the Doctor.  
"Good," says the Doctor, "because this might be slightly hazardous."

The Doctor winds a strong arm around Sherlock's waist, shouts "Don't let go!", and vaults from the building.

Sherlock has been aware they are a very long distance from the ground. He has been very aware and reasonably cautious of this fact. And he does trust the Doctor. (Stupidly, sentimentally, he does trust him, for some unexplained reason.) And the Doctor may be a very magical, extraterrestrial creature, but Sherlock has yet to see him demonstrate the ability to fly. Or transport. Or employ any sort of power that might prevent the two of them from flattening themselves on the ground like berries under a child's shoe.  
So Sherlock does not scream, but it is a close thing.

At the last moment, both his and the Doctor's feet catch on something solid, like stiff elastic, but there is nothing beneath them. For nearly a whole three seconds the invisible elastic net below them seems to absorb their impacts, slowly, slowly, stretching down until their feet are nearly touching the white street below them.

Then the net springs back.

Sherlock can see the sky, the shiny white buildings, the tiny blue spot that is the TARDIS. They are both very high in the air, and then they aren't. They're falling again.

Sherlock squeaks only a bit. The Doctor grips him more tightly, twists in the air just so, and when they hit, they go sprawling with a muffled _thump_ over a white rooftop.

Sherlock lays on his back, breathing low and fast for several seconds as the Doctor stands up and brushes himself off. "Are you okay?" the Doctor asks Sherlock, just ever so noticeably tentative. Sherlock wants to _strangle_ him. Can't he see?

"That was _extraordinary_ ," he breathes and reaches up to grab the Doctor's coat lapels and pull his face level to his own. The Doctor's eyes are wide and startled and blue, and frankly he's the most beautiful thing Sherlock has ever seen. "That was better than _Christmas_ ," Sherlock insists.

"A blue-wire speed field," the Doctor says, sounding rather breathy himself. "Very useful. Very effective when one jumps from buildings."

"I can only imagine," Sherlock says, and his breath catches when he see the Doctor's eyes flick down to his lips.  
Sherlock realizes he is still gripping the Doctor's coat and he can hear the mœdret soldiers in the distance, and let's go immediately. "They're close," he murmurs quietly to the Doctor, whose face hasn't moved and is so close that Sherlock may very well go cross-eyed trying to keep him in sight.

"Then we need to go, don't we," the Doctor says. Sherlock's heart stops beating for four seconds, because suddenly the Doctor is leaning in, and--

he kisses Sherlock's cheek; soft, chapped lips pass over his skin, and then Sherlock blinks and the sensation is gone. The Doctor's hand is held out, steady. "Let's go, then," the Doctor says.

Sherlock takes his hand, and they leap off of the building.

 

~*~

When they have gotten back to the TARDIS, the mœdret soldiers have been evaded, the tyrannical, militaristic, ancient Japanese worshipper has been overthrown, and  the Doctor's sonic screwdriver has proven to be one of the most useful devices Sherlock has ever laid eyes on. 

He decidedly doesn't talk about the kiss. It is not something he does by nature anyway (only boring people have to talk about feelings), but he decidedly does not think about the kiss either. In fact, he makes every effort to delete it from his mind palace. This proves to be difficult, so instead Sherlock locks it in a cabinet in the first floor, which he hardly ever visits. By the time he in on the third floor, the tapping coming from inside the cabinet is muffled, and by the fifth floor, Sherlock can hear nothing at all, and the mind palace is peaceful. 

Sherlock makes his way to the top, and once he's there, he begins to spade his way through a wall that looks satisfactory. The wall falls away like peeling wallpaper, and Sherlock builds a doorframe, and then a room. The space itself is exceptionally normal. The walls are a familiar, circuit board blue, and the trimming is oddly elaborate. Sherlock actually tries to pinpoint the baseboards and what makes them so frustratingly entrancing, but they somehow evade him. He thinks that they are moving. 

Sherlock raises the ceiling to make it comfortable, and peels another window from the opposite wall. The windows has the same trimming that Sherlock can't quite pinpoint, and outside he sees nothing but blackness. He replaces the blackness with the stars of a thousand galaxies swarming around him, glittering and wobbling. 

Finally, Sherlock stands back. The room is so inviting - he nearly wants to stay here and listen to the whispers of the stars outside, stare at the trimming and the soft paint on the walls. But he doesn't. Instead, Sherlock steps out of the room, sets the dark blue doors of a police box into the doorframe, and locks the door behind him. He does not look back at it. 


End file.
